PSD Blog - The World Bank Group

Wikipedia, the anti-cholesterol medication for knowledge management

Trying to find a document through the World Bank search engine (either externally or internally)? Good luck! You might want to pencil in an afternoon...

Instead, you could turn to Wikipedia, which has an excellent search engine. Some innovative staff in the Latin America region of the World Bank have decided to start posting comprehensive articles on topics like energy and water. The benefits? Easy to find, even years after the item is published, not subject to excessive review processes before publication, and free to the public. It's like an anti-cholesterol medication for knowledge management at the World Bank.

For an example, check out this article on the electricity sector in Argentina.

Pollution for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Editor's Note: The following post also appears on Dave Lawrence's personal blog, Out of Mongolia.    

The winter air in Ulaanbaatar is hard to imagine. It is basically a thick blanket of smoke spewing out from the stoves of thousands of people living in gers, which are traditional Mongolian homes made from wooden frames covered in felt. Raw coal is the main fuel, since it is much cheaper than wood. Traffic and power plants play their part too, but it's the smoke from the gers that makes breathing such a challenge at this time of year.

Half a million people in the city live in the ger districts. They are mostly poor; recent migrants from the countryside in search of better lives. The poorest cannot even afford coal, and burn whatever they get their hands on.  Even garbage and old tires. Just think of what's going into the air.

What to watch for at the Annual Meetings

Robert Zoellick leads off with the opening press conference of the Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank and IMF (video after the jump). Zoellick argues that developing countries now face a triple hit: "In July, at the G8 summit, I said that developing countries were facing a double jeopardy from the impact of high food and fuel prices. But what was then a double jeopardy is now a triple hit--food, fuel, and finance--threatening not just to knock the poorest people down, but to hold them down." Check out more coverage of the Annual Meetings at the Annual Meetings Briefing Center. 

Oil prices

Portfolio has an interesting interactive online map with gas prices per gallon in countries around the world (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan). Gas prices in Turkey are about three times as high as that in the U.S. I wonder which country is closer to the theoretical free market price?

Terrorism as instrumental variable

Perhaps my econometrics is a bit rusty, but I found this summary of new research on Vox kind of odd:

There is both casual and formal evidence from the post-war period that abrupt movements in the price of oil have significant effects on the macroeconomy...However, the price of oil and the state of the world economy are endogenously determined and the links and interactions between the two are far from simple. The authors of DP 6937 experiment with terrorist acts as the instrumental variable, in order to examine the relationship between the price of oil, terrorist incidents and the resultant effects on profitability and margins.

How is it that terrorist acts are exogenous to the functioning of an economy? This book might suggest otherwise.

G8 via Skype

Given the amount of resources expended on the G8 - think of the jet fuel, huge dinners, and 20,000 police officers mobilized for security - many bloggers have happily pointed to the irony of world leaders discussing the food crisis and global warming. But one blogger in Japan going by the name of fookpaktsuen offered a novel proposal: run the G8 meetings via Skype (Hat tip: Global Voices Online). Here's what he had to say (translation courtesy of Global Voices Online):

Over 20,000 police officers were mobilized from Shikoku and Kyushu…and global warming is the main agenda, while the fact is that holding this summit is itself “earth-unfriendly”...If terrorist attacks are considered a threat, then instead of all state leaders getting together, it's better to have the meeting over Skype. The number of police on defense was larger than that of the 120 protesters in the anti-Summit demonstration, [which took place] in a rural area far away from the summit. It's absurd.

Global trade and the cost of transport

The extraordinary growth in trade seen prior to the First World War and after the Second World War has often been attributed to a decline in the cost of transport. However, a new paper available from the National Bureau of Economic Research called Global Trade and the Maritime Transport Revolution suggests that the decline in the cost of transport had little influence on the growth of trade prior to the First World War:

[W]e find little systematic evidence suggesting that the maritime transport revolution was a primary driver of the late nineteenth century global trade boom. Rather, the most powerful forces driving the boom were those of income growth and convergence. Finally, we suggest that a significant portion of the observed decline in maritime transport costs may have been induced by the trade boom itself.

This is obviously a bit of speculation on my part, but I wonder if this finding suggests that the current rising cost of fuel will do little to dampen global trade nowadays?

Clarification: I should make clear that I am speculating about the impact of the cost of fuel on the cost of transportation and how that would effect global trade. Obviously, the rising cost of fuel will also have consequences for GDP growth, which may also harm global trade flows.

Solar power makes it to Kenya

In a report last year called Selling Solar, the IFC admitted that its decade-plus engagement with solar power had not been as successful as hoped:

While IFC programs have been responsible for the installation of over 84,000 solar home systems (SHS), these programs have been less successful from a financial standpoint, IFC having been unable to significantly transform markets and create sustainable businesses as originally anticipated.

Just a few weeks ago, however, an article in the East African Standard suggested that demand for solar power is taking off in Kenya (Hat tip: SciDev).

The World Bank Wants You!

No, it’s not a joke—the World Bank Group is undertaking consultations right now on its Strategic Framework on Climate Change and Development. Yesterday I attended an internal consultation, and the turnout – over 100 staff – made it clear that World Bank staff are seeing that climate change affects their work. Global consultations with governments, civil society, the private sector, and other groups have been going on since March 2008 in places as far-flung as Brasilia and Jakarta. You also have a chance to get your two cents (or eurocents, pesos, or whatever) in by commenting online. The deadline for submitting comments has been extended through July 7. You can also see what others are saying on the site.

Sign of the times

This is perhaps related to PSD only indirectly, but I couldn't help posting this picture of an intersection in Manchester during rush hour. Notice anything missing? I have to admit my initial amazement at the empty streets, but perhaps people can kick the driving habit if gas prices go high enough. The Manchester Evening News had this to say: 

Traffic analysts confirmed there has been a dramatic fall in the number of cars on the region's roads as the price of unleaded petrol heads towards £1.20 a litre.

For developing countries that are suffering the ill effects of climate change, this is a very small piece of good news.